Flight Friday: Widebody Utilization Recovery And The Impact On OEMs

This week's #FlightFriday looks at the recovery of widebody utilization and what that means for the engine OEMs.

Widebody aircraft were the hardest-hit aircraft class during the pandemic, and subsequently have taken the longest to recover.

We can start with the good news. General Electric (GE)-powered aircraft recovered the quickest, as they power Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s, as well as some Airbus A330s. Operators opted to use their most efficient aircraft initially, where they had them, so the 787 was heavily utilized when a widebody aircraft was needed. GE-powered widebodies are virtually back at operating a similar number of monthly flights when compared to the equivalent month in 2019.

The removal of China’s zero-COVID policy really provided Rolls-Royce (RR) with a huge boost. With China having a large fleet of RR-powered A330s, utilization started to jump from around 70% before, up to almost a 100% by the end of the year. This provides RR with a huge amount of aftermarket engine MRO opportunities. RR also exclusively powers the A350 and the A330neo. Continued production ramp-up and deliveries of these aircraft types lead to a higher utilization level.

Pratt & Whitney (P&W)-powered aircraft have returned to 75% of flights of the equivalent month in 2019. With P&W-powered aircraft mainly on legacy types, we have seen that these aircraft have started to be removed from service because of the pandemic. With P&W no longer providing engines for any of the current widebody aircraft on order, except for the KC-46, then perhaps the 75% level is as good a rate as they can hope for.

Engine Alliance (EA) can only be found on an A380. The A380 took quite a while to return to service, as its limited cargo-carrying capacity and four engines make it less appealing to operators. However, despite all of that, they have managed to return to around two-thirds of 2019 levels, which is a positive sign when considering the number of A380s that were retired during the pandemic.

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.